


Search and Rescue

by ninemoons42



Category: Prometheus (2012), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Reality, Cat!Erik, Gen, Pets, Rescue, Soldiers, Space Flight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-06 07:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42





	Search and Rescue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Ship's Cat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/416005) by [wanderingflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingflame/pseuds/wanderingflame). 



title: Search and Rescue  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ninemoons42**](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)  
word count: approx. 1580  
fandoms: McFassy, Prometheus, X-Men: First Class  
characters: David 9 [James McAvoy], David 8 [Michael Fassbender], Erik Lehnsherr [as a cat]  
rating: PG  
notes: Inspired by and sort of a flipped AU of the amazing David 8/Charles the cat story [The Ship's Cat](http://archiveofourown.org/works/416005) by [wanderingflame](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingflame/pseuds/wanderingflame). In this story, there is no Charles cat, but there is an Erik cat, and it stows away on the ship that's been dispatched to rescue David 8. Who's the person on that ship? David 9.

  
This is what he remembers when he thinks about Weyland, when he thinks about the place where he was created. Where he was manufactured.

He remembers the clean corridors. He remembers the target-shooting range and the thick odor of gun oil hanging in the air, sharp enough that even he had had to take some time to get used to it, though his olfactory receptors compensated quickly enough and it was only the sharp rawness of the sensation that he registered, every time he descended to that basement and looked over the selection of weapons in which he was supposed to become proficient.

He remembers learning about the rules of gun safety. He remembers the elation of figuring out how to shoot a bow correctly. He remembers studying the pattern of pock-marks and holes he leaves in his targets - not all of them human-shaped, and yet all of them theoretically or symbolically dead, because the idea is to shoot something in the center of its mass, and his brain is more than equipped to run these calculations on the split-second.

Even now, David 9 is carrying, though he's all alone on the ship. One energy weapon, a top-of-the-line heavy blaster holstered securely at his hip. One telescoping blade-staff, made to his exact specifications, and currently in its compact form, strapped diagonally onto his back.

He doesn't have any enemies here, aboard ship - but he's heading for something that could either be a war zone or a dead one.

The vessel's name is _Atlas_. David 9 appreciates the irony of it - prototype for the _Prometheus_ , older and heavier, but it possesses the weapons and armor that should have gone to its sister ship.

Now the _Atlas_ is flying to rescue what the _Prometheus_ has left behind.

It's been a year since the wreck of the Prometheus came back - limping into Earthspace when it had never been expected to return, Doctor Shaw a mess and its Captain on life support, and missing its android besides - to an unbelievable and terrifying reason.

David 9 accesses the video footage easily, and remembers, as though it were only yesterday, the breathless words of Doctor Shaw's homecoming statement, the last thing anyone had heard from her before she was taken into protective custody: "We have placed an interdict beacon on the planet, and it will continue to send out its warning broadcasts for as long as our...companion...will be able to. Please, _please_ , send help - send him help! Our David 8's alone out there, and he can't be around forever, and no one else must ever land there, because that place is evil and broken and wrong...."

Maybe the mood from Weyland is affecting him, too, though he is no longer in any physical proximity to the laboratories - but he _is_ receiving regular bulletins regarding Doctor Shaw and the Captain's conditions, and the anxiety and the nervousness remains, and if anything is still steadily increasing. In addition, some of the others are worried for David 8's safety - and David 9 knows for a fact that this group includes at least one of the Wao 5 protocol series.

Three weeks out of planetside orbit, while David 9 is calibrating the ship's systems for the first leap, the one that will take him out of Sol's territory - he hears the cranky, strange sound coming out of one of the storage rooms.

He's known about his "passenger" literally since the moment of take-off, but this is the first time that it's decided to make its presence obvious to him.

He doesn't reach for any of his weapons as he makes his way through the ship's corridors.

There's no need, he thinks.

A shadow streaks through an open door ahead - fast, low to the ground, and streaming behind it is the unmistakable flip-movement of a tail.

"Come here, come on," David 9 calls, in what he hopes is a soothing voice, something that the "passenger" will respond to. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise."

That gets him an inquisitive sound, a chirp of some kind, and his eyes easily catch the skittering movement of something small.

David 9 sits down, right on the tiled floor, and he closes his eyes and keeps perfectly still, and waits.

He can sense the movements coming closer, the near-silent steps padding towards him. Warmth, and the sense of coiled energy, sleek and sliding toward him.

He opens his eyes just as the cat climbs into his lap, still skittish, but daring enough to come and look at him.

He can tell right away he's looking at a male cat, a handsome specimen of a tom, slate-gray fur dappled in silver-blue. Bright, piercing green eyes, pupils wide open, and looking straight into his.

It only takes a moment before David 9 identifies the breed. "You're very good-looking," he says gently, "but then perhaps you've been made to be, hmm? Hello, my Russian Blue friend. Welcome to _Atlas_. I'm David 9. Will you let me look you over, to see if you are all right?"

The cat tilts both its head and the very tip of its tail at him, the head to the right and the tail to the left, and then it cranes forward and touches its cold nose to his jaw, and lies down complacently in his lap.

It does have a collar: scratched up, but the name is still legible.

_Erik_

He has to stand up, but first he scoops the cat into his arms - a little clumsily, he thinks. He'll have to learn, somehow, and he hopes the cat will let him - and then he's on his feet, and he's passing his hand over the cat's back, a warm curl of soft fur and compact muscle, and he's saying, "Pleased to meet you, Erik."

///

David 9 spends many of his waking hours training, and getting ready for whatever battles he might have to fight once he gets to the interdicted planet.

Erik is never more than a few meters away, except when he's sparring. Then the cat likes to curl up next to the door, and watch him leap and fight and run through his forms. Occasionally the cat yowls encouragement at him.

When David 9 has to rest, to apply necessary maintenance and updates and patches to himself or to the ship, he knows he only has to look down to see Erik, napping on one of his feet, or rolling around after some safe little plaything that he's scrounged up from ship's supplies.

Nothing seems to make Erik happier than to run around after David 9 as he jogs around the ship, or to bat at a dangling end of string from the sleeve of his flight suit.

David 9 quickly learns that he has to watch any door he passes because opening or closing it too soon might mean waking Erik up from a nap, earning him the cat's hisses and brush-offs (sometimes enforced with claws, which David 9 trims on a periodic basis) in the process. But the cat seems to be militantly good-natured in his own standoffish way, and nearly always comes back to wherever David 9 is.

They talk, from time to time. If Erik meows, David 9 responds, "Yes? Can I help you?" If Erik responds to the question, David 9 continues the "conversation", right until the point where the cat gets bored and turns its attentions to something else.

The conversations never go anywhere, but they make David 9 smile, and somehow, maybe that does mean the cat is earning its keep on _Atlas_.

///

Once they're within sensor range of the interdicted planet - the planet that _Prometheus_ had fled - David 9 finds himself falling into a series of behavioral patterns that he thinks of as his Soldier mode. He devotes a lot of time to thinking about the results of the scans he makes of the planet's surface; he lays out plans for attack and defense.

He thinks about the David 8 who's still there.

There is a power source in the ship's supplies that does not need to be replaced or recharged, that can be used to keep powering the interdict beacon, so he can take the other android out with him.

Erik seems to understand that they're about to do something very important, and spends a lot of time shadowing David 9; he reciprocates, doesn't let the cat out of his sight, right until the very moment that they have to land and he puts the cat in a safety capsule and says solemnly, "I have to lock the ship down. It won't be safe for you to be roaming the decks in case something bad happens. Stay here, for me, until I come back."

Erik chirps, once, and leaps toward him, scrabbling up his armor to lick his nose - and the cat yowls unhappily when he puts it back into the safe space. After David 9 locks down the protective lid, the cat seems to sigh, and then it lies down and closes its eyes, a shivering spiral of sable fur and uneasy sleep.

"Please, be all right," David 9 says, and he doesn't know whether he means it for the cat, the ship, the other android, or himself, as he rushes off, and homes in on the location of the interdict beacon.  



End file.
